meet anna phylactic

This time every year, Catherine bakes cookies to remember her dad, who died nine years ago.

We were coming home on the TTC last night, and Catherine broke out some of the cookies. They’re peanut butter this year, and they’re as good as they always are. We were gnawing away happily on them when a girl sat near us suddenly leaps up from her walkman-induced reverie, and asks, “Are those peanut butter cookies?”

We thought from her tone that she wanted one, but when Catherine said that they were peanut butter, the girl yelped and ran off to the next carriage. Other folks on the train looked at us as if we’d just executed an Aum Shinrikyo-style attack on the transit system with peanut roasters planted at every station.

People just weren’t allergic to peanuts when I was young. But it’s getting so you just can’t enjoy a cookie on the subway any more.